minefield of strength of armour in pregnancy

[Guest guest]

Hi all,

was wondering if someone could shed some light as to what I should be taking and

variations in strength between ERFA armour and levothyroxine as levo

dosage/tablets marked as mcg and the armour is MG...I was taking the tablets

from Thailand from

http://www.1drugstore-online.com/showprice.asp?name=armour & bysearch=ok , was

taking 4 a day, then ran out then incurred some difficulty re-ordering from

there so fell back on my stock of levo was taking 225mcg a day then due to

pregnancy fell back to 75mcg. I have looked at the conversion tables in the

files but all the NDT measurements are in mcg not mg as stated on my ERFA armour

bottle, the tablets are 30 mg in strength...I was taking two of the ERFA until

today when I noticed mg on the bottle not mcg.... Also worried as my TSh levels

have not been monitored and have read things on interent about babies of hypo

patients having low IQ if the patient is not suffienciently hormone replaced

during pregnancy and also the risk of miscarriage etc etc...Also it has come to

light today that my pregnancy may not be going as planned...I would be grateful

for any advice, many thanks.

[Guest guest]

Hi Jill,

I'm pretty sure that you're supposed to increase the meds when you get pregnant.

Why were they dropped from 225 to 75? what did this do to how you felt?

One grain (60mg) of armour is generally thought to contain approx 38mcg of T4

and 9mcg of T3. (i got this off the side of the naturethroid pack)

So 4 tablets @ half a grain (30mg) each would have been 75mcg T4 and 18mcg of

T3. in total. It's not an exact like for like science though, it just gives

you some idea. If t3 is considered to be 4 times as potent as T4 then 2

grains is roughly equal to 150 mcg of t4. However, this isn't a perfect

conversion, because it entirely depends on how well you can convert the T4 into

t3.

I would request in writing to the head of practice, that the doctor monitors

your thyroid levels as a matter of urgency. If the doctor ignores this and the

request is in your records, he will have a difficult time if anything goes wrong

due to thyroid.

There is information available in the files about hypothyroidism and pregnancy.

Scroll down until you find the link

.....thyroid treatment/files/

What does the doctor think you are taking?

x

>

> Hi all,

>

> was wondering if someone could shed some light as to what I should be taking

and variations in strength between ERFA armour and

[Guest guest]

Hi amanda,

thanks very much for your reply, the 225mcg was a self medicated amount as was

trying to work against the conversion tables what should be taking, but then

75mcg was the prescribed dose from the doctors, and my TSH on 225mcg and 4

grains was well under 0.01 so panicking slightly in case was over-medicated when

found out was pregnant, this was 5 weeks ago. I since took delivery of the ERFA

thyroid and switched to that from the levothyroxine, however no-one has taken

ANY bloods from me and as of today have seen 2 GP's and 2 midwife's..Also had to

go to early pregnancy today as from sat until yesterday was suffering from old

brown blood discharge...my cycle was very erratic every 5-6 weeks, and carried

out pregnancy test 7/8 dec , I know they date you on date of last period ( this

is my third pregnancy with big gap between last and this ) , so was dated as

roughly 9/10 weeks, however then went for scan today the growth was only dated

at 5/6 weeks so either the dates were wildly out or the pregnancy is not

viable....it's hard to gauge and to take in as have been on a rollercoaster over

past 8 weeks as this all came about from a gyn appointment and she was about to

start me on injections to induce the menopause ( as well as high dose HRT ) due

to the return of endometriotal symptoms , then I did home pregnancy test just to

make sure and was shocked as my youngest is 8 nearly and we thought my fertility

was non-existent, and then today's news, am living in hope and trying to stay

positive that due to my erratic cycle the pregnancy is not as far on as first

thought.

[Guest guest]

Jill,

Oh dear, what a muddle... if it helps any, I passed a continuing professional

development module in thyroid and dosages which impressed my doctor.... I

don't necessarily agree with it all, but its what the doctors understand...

All you have to do is read the passages and then answer questions on them.

have a look:

http://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=4126143

Here is the last item on the module:

_____________________________

10 And what about hypothyroidism in pregnant women?

Untreated maternal hypothyroidism results in neuropsychological damage to the

offspring. Patients with hypothyroidism who become pregnant need to have the

dose of levothyroxine increased on average by 50µg daily in order to maintain

normal serum TSH concentrations.

The advice to patients with established hypothyroidism is that they should

increase their dose of levothyroxine by 25µg daily as soon as pregnancy is

confirmed and make an appointment for thyroid function tests to be measured some

two weeks later. The aim is to achieve a free T4 concentration of 16-20pmol/l.

Further measurement of serum free T4 and TSH should be made six weeks later and

again in the middle of the second and third trimesters.

The pre-pregnancy dose of levothyroxine can be restored four weeks after

delivery by which time the increased concentrations of thyroxine binding

globulin will have returned to normal. It's not clear whether this meticulous

care is necessary and it may well be that any thyroxine therapy in the

hypothyroid mother will allow normal foetal development.

Dr Tony Toft is consultant physician and endocrinologist at the Royal Infirmary

of Edinburgh, and a former president of the Royal College of Physicians of

Edinburgh and of the British Thyroid Association

__________________________________________

x

>

>

> Hi amanda,

>

> thanks very much for your reply, the 225mcg was a self medicated amount as was

trying to work against the conversion tables what should be taking, but then

75mcg was the prescribed dose from the doctors